


Locking Up the Sun

by Sp00py



Series: The Unrelated Adventures of Azula and Zuko, Who Are Related [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Barely an attempt at a cohesive plot, Burning, Choking, Consensual(!) Caregiving, Drowning, Drug Withdrawal, F/M, Fear, Incest, Isolation, Just.... everything is non-con, Kidnapping, M/M, Nail Trauma, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Non-Consensual Hygiene, Non-Consensual Kissing, Non-Consensual Oral Sex, Post-Canon, Sensory Deprivation, Starvation, Tired and Unstable Zuko, Torture, Vaguely comic compliant, Vomiting, deprivation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:01:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26408383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sp00py/pseuds/Sp00py
Summary: Azula uses others. That is the natural order of things, and Zuko is just the most useful tool she has right now.
Relationships: Azula/Zuko (Avatar), Ozai/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: The Unrelated Adventures of Azula and Zuko, Who Are Related [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1919431
Comments: 21
Kudos: 103





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> stole the title from a Poets of the Fall song. Also I live for Zuko being so exhausted and Done that he's just this side of a breakdown.

Azula was unaccustomed to a harder life, but she adapted to any situation well. This cave wasn’t the worst, though the company she currently kept was lacking. Cheng was a sniveling weakling, and the men and women who followed him reflected that. Selfish, pathetic, pampered. They thought they could use her. _All_ of them thought that.

Her gaze flickered to Ozai, his long hair pulled back and his wardrobe more fitting of his station than the prison garb she’d freed him in. A few scratches dappled his cheek and arms. He still looked gaunt, though, haunted and hollow. Without his inner flame that once called to and commanded her. It stirred something awful in Azula, seeing the man she feared and respected so ruined. It made him like the others. How could she respect -- how could she _fear_ a man like that? Father was a shadow of his former glory, and he’d never achieve it again, even if the crown ever made it to his head. It ached, oddly, in her chest, like her loyalty was a lamp that had been smothered, leaving a cold, dark spot.

She didn’t like it. She didn’t like being around him, but he had raised her well. She knew how to use others then discard them. It was only fitting that Azula would use it on the man who planned to do the same to her.

But there was time. They were well hidden, far from the Caldera. Zuko was bound by stone to a chair carved from the cave itself, two Dai Li flanking his slumped form. His crown had been placed with far more loving care on a pillowed natural shelf in the cave nearby. He was drugged, and had been for long enough to get him here. It hadn’t been easy, with bouts of consciousness on the road, the instinctual need to fight, to escape, to burn them before they could burn him, until more drugs were forced down his throat, until he stilled and slipped into a dreamless, restless slumber. Azula hoped he’d wake up soon, so she could see the fear and anger and bewilderment that always swirled around him when it came to his family.

Zuko’s head rolled as he struggled toward consciousness. Azula crept closer, waiting for when their Father noticed. He was far away from Zuko, by the fire, casting his children in shadows.

Zuko blinked, sunken eyes unfocused, and licked his lips. Azula pressed a cup to his mouth, and he followed the cup to her hand, then up to her face. A flicker of a smile once he realized who it was bloomed then died. He looked terrible, drawn and worn like _he’d_ been the one in prison, or in an asylum. Or fed only drugged water for days on end.

“Azula --”

“Azula,” Ozai called sharply, interrupting any further words as he left the fire. Their father approached, and Azula immediately stepped away at his tone.

“Ozai,” Zuko said, voice still a little slurred as he struggled to find their father’s face in the backlight of the fire. Azula didn’t know if he intended just saying his name, no honorifics no acknowledgement of their relationship, as a slight, because it’s soft little _Zuko_ , but Ozai’s fist clenched. She leaned against the cool wall of the cave, crossing her arms, expression carefully bored even as her eyes were locked on the scene playing out before her.

“Still as disrespectful as ever, I see.”

“No,” Zuko said, straightening, the drugged-up fog in his eyes dissipating bit by tiny bit. “I’m just respectful to those who deserve it.”

Ah, so that was definitely a slight. Hard to believe her fragile older brother had grown such a sharp tongue and strong backbone. Father backhanded him, and the crack of Zuko’s head bouncing off the back of the chair echoed.

“You’ll do well to mind your tongue, _child_.”

Zuko, of all things, _laughed_ , and this situation was spiraling amazingly out of control already. If Zuko wasn’t careful, Azula really would become an only child. “Or what? Are you after the throne? Is that why I’m here?”

“The Fire Nation needs a strong ruler, not a weakling who bends to other nations.”

“Even Azula’s given up on ruling,” Zuko said, and Azula shot him daggers for dragging her into the conversation. “What would you do once you got the throne? The Fire Nation is loyal to _me_ . The Avatar and the greatest benders in the world are my friends and family. Did you --” he caught himself as Ozai’s look twisted into pure, vile rage, and it almost seemed like fear, until another laugh broke free. “Did you not think this _through_? Uncle yelled at me for that, but I guess I know where it came fr--”

Ozai fisted his hand in Zuko’s loose hair and punched him, cutting off any more words. Azula winced at the dull thud, but Zuko laughed again, and again, as Ozai interrupted the exhausted, mad cackles with more blows. She generally preferred a more delicate hand when hurting her brother, but once the initial shock passed, Azula found something almost hypnotic about his bizarre, broken response. It had to hurt, and he had to be scared, but he seemed so unable to comprehend anything but a twisted humor in the situation. Perhaps they should have cut back on the drugs.

Eventually, Zuko’s laughter guttered like a lamp running out of oil, choked on blood and mingling with hacking, wet coughs. Ozai stepped back, his own hand bruised and bloodied. His chest heaved with the effort, and his eyes were almost bright enough with rage that Azula could pretend he still had his inner flame.

“Pathetic,” their father ground out as Zuko slumped forward and struggled for air. Ozai’s golden eyes flickered over to Azula. “Watch him.”

“Of course, Father,” she said, dropping instinctually into a kneel as he stormed off. As soon as he was out of ear-shot, she smirked at Zuko. “Father’s going to kill you,” she sing-songed in a familiar parody of the same news, brought years ago.

“Hahah,” Zuko muttered as blood dripped in thick strands into his lap. He spit more out.

Azula snapped her fingers and gestured, and with a few movements, the Dai Li had produced an identical chair to Zuko’s facing him. She settled into it like it was a throne and reached over for the crown. It slipped so perfectly, so _rightly_ , into her topknot.

“How does it look, Zuzu? Be honest.”

“Be careful about pretending to be Fire Lord, Azula, or you’ll wind up with half _your_ face burned off.” Zuko somehow managed to look as dry as Mai with blood oozing down his face, injuries slurring his already lisping speech.

Azula took the crown out of her hair and set it aside with all the calmness of one who wanted to do it herself, and not because of what Zuko had said. “So you really think the Fire Nation is loyal to you?”

Zuko hacked a few more clumps of blood. Such a nasty habit for a ruler. “Not everyone. But enough. And they’re not loyal through fear.”

Azula pshawed. “Fear is the best kind of loyalty.”

“My people love me, Azula. It’s... ” He trailed off, casting barely a glance at the Dai Li, but clearly checking that Father wasn’t around. “It scares me. They’re willing to _die_ for me.”

“As citizens of our nation should for their ruler.”

“No!” he yelled, then tensed, choking back a cough as his eyes darted over to the fire, and returned to whispering. “That’s not -- I don’t want that, Azula. If anything, I should be willing to die for them.”

“Still having trouble ruling? That loyalty is what you are _owed_ , Zuzu.”

Zuko fell silent, eyes dropping to his bloodied lap. “Does Fath-- Does Ozai know?”

“That I don’t serve him? Of course not.” Azula waved at her Dai Li. “They follow his orders because I told them to.” She could see from the way his gaze flickered back to their father that Zuko wasn't so confident. Zuko really should have the same expectation of loyalty in others Azula did. She wouldn't make the same mistake she had with Ty Lee and Mai.

“What if I tell him?”

“Then he kills me.” Azula smiled, and it was full of teeth. “And I don’t know how your conscience could deal with that.”

Zuko was silent. They watched each other, not a word more spoken. Eventually, Azula stood and assumed her position off to the side as the chair disappeared once more into the floor. And, as their father returned with a pot of embers and a collection of tools, Zuko’s silence held. At least so far as Azula’s loyalties went. He screamed and cried and spit licks of rainbow fire and steaming blood loud enough to echo in Azula’s ears even after he’d passed out.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was born of a single Zuko/Azula sex scene that I decided to add a bit more build-up to. then a bit more. then a bit more. This chapter doesn't even have Azula in it. wtf
> 
> Also Zuko murders a cave.

Zuko flickered between sleeping and wakefulness, never quite attaining either. The tainted water Azula kept forcing down his throat numbed him to most of the pain, but he knew it should be there. Everything was a blur, colors, darkness. Sometimes, sometimes he thought he was back on his ship: he’s thirteen, infection burns across his face and into his eyes from a man who was supposed to protect him, who was supposed to _love_ him. He doesn’t understand _why_ \--

His breath caught, struggled to crawl out of a throat coated in sticky blood, swollen and bruised from screaming. Zuko had lived years past that, suffered and grown and changed, but now he felt with absolute horror it was all undone. He tried to swallow, and his tongue stuck, dry and thick, and instead he coughed. Something hard fell out of his mouth and bounced off of his leg.

It was so dark. Bandages -- no, nighttime. The fire was out. Zuko wasn’t strapped to a bed to keep him from hurting himself as he healed. He was strapped to a chair, and hurting him was the _point._ There wasn’t even moonlight this far into the cave, just the weak glow of embers too far for Zuko to focus on and feel. That… that was fine. He didn’t need more fire, right now. He had enough burns littering his arms, and pain flared from his fingertips, from his face. Whatever they’d been slipping him was fading, forcing a disoriented, terrifying reality to take its place.

“Father?” he asked (or thought he asked, everything was so _loud_ ) as a shadow blocked the ember’s glow.

The shadow grabbed him by the upper arm and dragged him up as his bonds crumbled into pebbles. Zuko stood for half a second before his legs gave out. Agony shot up from his knees as he hit the ground. His body jerked, stomach clenching as his body tried to empty a stomach that was already empty. Some viscous acid and water dribbled from his mouth and burned his throat. Zuko hung limp after that sudden, pathetic bout of energy. A strange numbness that Zuko hadn’t noticed what with everything else ached through his body, and he wanted nothing more than to stamp and move and shake away the wrongness, but someone else had taken his other arm, and they were dragging him along the rough floor as he tried to even figure out how his limbs work.

He didn’t get a chance to, as he was thrown unceremoniously into a smaller offshoot cave. Zuko hit a stalagmite and crumpled with a groan. He had only a moment to appreciate the coolness of the stone before something icy and hard clicked around his wrists, and his arms were dragged above his head. There was a distant-thunder rumbling of stone shifting, and when the person stepped back, Zuko didn’t fall. His arms were chained to a stalactite. Zuko tried to muddle through if this was an improvement or not, or if he even cared either way.

The figures left, stone ground, sealing the opening behind them, and absolute silence, absolute darkness settled around Zuko.

* * *

Without Azula to dope him up, Zuko started becoming more and more aware of the world -- the real world, he assumed. It was hard to tell, sometimes. He suspected he had a fever, or hypothermia. Or both. Was both possible? The only sounds came from Zuko, his rasping breath, his fluttering heart, his rushing blood. Arms above his head, he decided, were so much worse than the chair. His hands were cold, and he couldn’t tell if he was even moving them as the world swam in an inky dark abyss around a body that Zuko wasn’t even sure was his own anymore. He hoped not, because it was in rough shape.

His body or not, he scrabbled to get someone’s feet under him and stand. He had to get out of here, and he was finally, blessedly alone to do so.

Zuko’s head collided with the tip of the stalactite, knocking his teeth, and blood flooded his mouth as his tongue throbbed. He slumped back down, the blackness around him sparkling with illusionary light. Icy pain dripped down his spine from his shoulders when his fall was arrested by the shackles around his wrists. For a blinding moment, Zuko forgot how to breathe.

Once he’d choked down the need to vomit and remembered how lungs worked, Zuko stood, this time more carefully. His head pulsed, and he gratefully rested his forehead against the cool, damp stone. This was better. He could work with this. Half starved. Dehydrated. Sun deprived. Everything hurting. Zuko was good at last-minute improvisation. Or was he bad at it? Uncle had said he was one of those. He hoped he was good at it, but it was like trudging through a swamp trying to keep his thoughts from dribbling out of his ears.

Minutes later, Zuko was struggling simply to breathe again, and he wasn’t sure why. His legs shook just from the effort of standing. His heart raced, and he saw things that he shouldn't be able to see. Shapes in the darkness, hollows of masks, limbs -- Zuko shook his head to banish them and grasped feebly at the stalactite for support as his stomach and heart both lurched. He forgot he was supposed to be escaping. He should do that.

Stone ground and light fell into the cave, evaporating the visions and dazzling Zuko. His good eye watered as he turned to hide his face from the light. It felt like only moments but also an eternity since he’d gotten to his feet. He wished time would figure out if it was moving or not, and in what direction, and how fast.

"Zuko," Ozai's voice stabbed through Zuko's good ear. Zuko risked a glare in his direction before he again hid from the lamp Ozai held. Ozai stepped into the cave, and the wall closed behind him. The lamp clicked gently as it was set down, and the bouncing shadows stilled. "I see you managed to stand. I'm almost impressed. I expected you to be kneeling like the pathetic child you are."

"Fuck you," Zuko spat. Azula would have had a better comeback, but Zuko wasn't ever as lucky or clever as her, so he didn't even bother. He just wanted Ozai gone, because he was about to collapse again, and didn't want him to see. It wouldn't truly be weakness to do so, Zuko knew, but he couldn't shake the desire to not seem weak before his father, even after all that Ozai had done to him that he had already endured. He wasn't weak. He just wasn't what Ozai had wanted.

"Look at me when you speak to me, brat." Ozai grabbed Zuko's hair again, wrenching his head so he had to, if not look at him, at least face him. Zuko swallowed the wave of nausea that swept over him, eyes scrunched tightly shut.

Ozai was silent. Zuko grit his teeth, waiting for pain. Strands of hair snapped free of his scalp from the grip twisting his hair. Zuko opened his good eye just a sliver. When he caught his father’s gaze, Ozai released his hair, and shoved him. Zuko toppled with embarrassing ease, only just catching himself on his knees. Even without his full weight pulling, the sudden movement made his muscles ache from elbow down his sides and back.

He scowled up at Ozai, pupils still pinpricks in the lamp’s glow, but it fell away as Zuko found himself in an arena, his father’s silhouette looming. Somehow, of all the things Ozai had done to Zuko afterwards -- the other murder attempts, the torture, the neglect -- none of it hurt as badly nor scarred as deeply as that first, horrific touch. 

“Better.”

Breathe. _Breathe_. He was going to hurt Zuko, but this wasn’t the Agni Kai. There weren’t so many other eyes on them. Uncle wasn’t here. Zuko wished Uncle was here. Or he didn’t. This would hurt Uncle too much to witness. Zuko couldn’t be so selfish, not again.

Ozai reached forward, and Zuko flinched back. Instead of burning the other half of his face (he can’t do that anymore, he can’t, he _can’t_ ), Ozai cupped Zuko’s face in his hands and tilted his head up. His fingers were smooth, not soft, but not calloused and hard like Zuko’s. Ozai hadn’t had time to build up the rough skin of a non-bender and a non-royal. How easily he could crush Zuko’s throat, though, if he wanted.

“No laughter today?” Ozai asked, thumbs brushing the starved, bruised hollows of Zuko’s cheeks. “Not even a smile?”

Zuko couldn’t remember why he’d been laughing in the first place. It didn’t seem very funny, being tortured until the world greyed out and everything became a rushing, shrieking muddle of sensations. He couldn’t even remember everything that had happened after a point, only notions of blood and fire and burning skin far too familiar to him. At least, regardless of why he’d laughed, it had pissed off Ozai, and Zuko would take the small victories.

“Why am I here?” Zuko asked. He couldn’t recall if Ozai had answered him the first time he’d asked, or if he had actually asked at all and not just imagined that. Even as the world started to make linear sense around him, now, Zuko wished that what had happened these past days (weeks?) would sort itself out, too.

“Because you are a traitor, a usurper, and a failure as Fire Lord. Because you’ve brought our great nation to its knees in subjugation to the Avatar. But most importantly, because _I_ want you here.”

Most of the words washed over Zuko, knives that meant to cut but were too dulled by his all-consuming lack of care about what Ozai thought of him. Most of them.

“It’s not subjugation,” he said, feeling an odd sense of calm. Zuko should be afraid. He had been afraid, but it was so hard to grasp the correct emotions or keep them in his hands for more than a few moments at a time before they dissolved into nothingness. Nothingness sounded nice right about now. “It’s _balance_ . I did what was right for the world and for _my_ people.”

The firm grip on Zuko’s face turned bruising, and Ozai dragged his face up to his own. “What is right is to _rule_ , Zuko.” He let him go, and Zuko sank back down. “You’re too weak and soft. You’re a disgrace to your lineage.”

“Better a disgrace than a monster,” Zuko muttered to Ozai’s feet.

Ozai yanked him up by his hair. Zuko winced. If he survived this, he was going to chop his hair all off again, tradition be damned.

“I am your father and your lord,” Ozai said, voice low. It echoed nonetheless in the small cave, like a chorus of threats around Zuko, and gooseflesh crept along his arms like when Ozai had thrown lightning at him what seemed like a lifetime ago. His eye widened, and then he did something very stupid.

He laughed. Again. Just a short huff of disbelief that Ozai had any claim of fatherhood or lordliness over him, but it slipped out before Zuko could stop it.

Ozai released him, and Zuko cringed away, expecting more blows. They didn’t come. Instead, he heard hissing, angry breath, the rustle of fabric, the sound of skin against skin (but neither of them Zuko’s?). Zuko risked a peek at what Ozai was doing.

Zuko’s head shot up, eye wide with surprise. “What--” Ozai was palming his length, the skin flushing from being worked at. Heat rose from Zuko’s neck to his ears as he completely failed to comprehend what was going on, but he didn’t like it. “Father?” he squeaked out, completely forgetting that Ozai was not his father, not anymore. And definitely not now.

“The only person you should subjugate yourself toward is _me_. Beg me, Zuko, to spare you.”

“Spare me?” he asked, not entirely sure what, specifically, he was going to most likely not be spared from. He didn’t want to think what it might be. Zuko knew in a general sort of way what rape was, what dishonorable men did to women after battles, or just because they could. What his father likely did to his mother, so he _knew_ Ozai wasn’t above that. But Zuko was his son _,_ much as neither liked that arraignment, and male. That was absurd. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. Zuko was his _son._

“ _Beg_ ,” Ozai ordered.

“Don’t -- Ozai --”

Fingers laced in his hair (cutting it as soon as he could, Zuko _swore_ ), yanking him forward as he tried instinctively to scramble back, heedless of the pain in his arms, the difficulty in getting purchase on the floor. His face scrunched up as he was dragged toward the hardening erection in Ozai’s other hand.

“ _Father_ ,” Zuko yelped, voice jumping higher as he tried and failed to twist his head away. A sharp wrench of his hair dragged out a wordless cry, and Ozai thrust in.

Zuko gagged, aching muscles spasming as the thick head pressed into his throat. _Now_ , he was begging, but it all came out as muffled nonsense noises while Ozai grabbed his head with both hands, trapping him while Ozai’s hips snapped and his dick jammed repeatedly into the back of Zuko’s throat. Ozai was saying something. Like it fucking _mattered_ what he was saying. Zuko couldn’t hear anything except the sound of flesh against flesh, his heart beating frantically, his lungs shuddering as he fought for air.

Ozai pulled back, saliva stretching from Zuko’s mouth to his length. The strand broke as Zuko attempted to gulp down air, cough, and spit up the salty warm taste on his tongue simultaneously. He only got a moment before Ozai returned to the task.

Tears trickled down Zuko’s good eye and he writhed, tearing out more strands of hair trying to get the slightest gap to breathe. He wanted to bite down or burn Ozai or _something_ to get him out, but every desire was overridden by the desperate, animal need for air. He got small sips through his nose, but never enough to compensate for what he lost crying out around Ozai’s girth.

The shadows of the cave grew and encroached on Zuko’s vision as he looked anywhere but up at Ozai. His lips were tingling numb where they didn’t sting, split, dried, leaking blood that he could taste every time Ozai thrust in.

He was going to choke to death on his dad’s dick. Zuko didn’t know if he was laughing, crying, screaming anymore. It didn’t matter, because they all amounted to the same thing right now. When did Zuko’s life spiral so horribly out of control? What god did he spite to deserve this?

Ozai’s hips jerked more erratically, and something warm and thick splattered inside his mouth, triggering another round of gagging. The hands in Zuko’s hair tightened, forcing him still. Zuko wished he would pass out, like the ringing in his ear and darkness in his eye kept teasing at. It was unfathomably cruel of himself that he didn't, that he couldn't _not_ fight. He never knew when to stop.

As soon as Ozai wasn’t supporting him, Zuko slumped forward, hacking like he’d almost drowned. Cum trailed in stinging drops from his nose, and dribbled out of his mouth, mixing with blood and spit to turn a milky pink.

If Ozai said anything afterwards, Zuko didn’t hear. His gaze lingered in some middle distance between the floor and his face. The light disappeared. Zuko assumed his father went with it, leaving him to his thoughts, his pain, and the things crawling at the edge of his vision. At least nothing hurt anymore. That probably wasn’t good, but Zuko was too distracted trying to muddle out how he could see things without any light, and if he should worry. Worrying took effort, though. So did thinking. So did breathing. So did living, but he still had to keep doing that for his people, so Zuko supposed he wouldn't die right now. Maybe later. That sounded nice.

He woke up in darkness, in the middle of vomiting anything his body could force up, barely cognizant, barely aware of when he’d nodded off. He refused to consider what he even had in his stomach at this point.

He woke up again to one of the things tilting his head back and trickling water into his mouth. That was nice of it. It smelled like Azula.

After that, Zuko slept.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feels rushed but i do what i want, so here we are

“What if Father’s _not_ a horrible, irredeemable monster?” Zuko mused. His hands were bound behind him now, one of the small mercies Azula allowed her brother while their father was off planning his little coup.

She held a small chunk of chicken-pig to his mouth, and he took it gingerly, chewing slowly, mindful of tender gums and a missing tooth.

“I’m sorry, _what_? Have you lost your mind, Zuzu?”

Zuko swallowed, and Azula helped him to sip some water. Every action hurt, she could see it on his face, but it would hurt worse without her… assistance. Though Father had told her to lessen the dosage or stop entirely and let him endure the pain, because Zuko hadn’t firebent for days. He’d barely done anything for days, and even now his eyes were fever bright, his face flushed and skin clammy. And now, Azula wondered if he was brain damaged as well.

“I mean,” he said slowly, as though trying to figure out his own reasoning. “He wasn’t always awful, right? He saved me when I was little. He….” Zuko trailed off, and Azula wasn’t sure if it was because he ran out of examples of their father being good, or he forgot what he was talking about.

“Are _you_ a horrible, irredeemable monster, Azula?” he asked once he muddled through whatever qualified as thoughts.

“Yes,” she said immediately, pushing some rice into his mouth. One grain slipped loose, and she caught it on his chin and shoved it after the rest.

Zuko chewed. Swallowed. “ _No_.”

“Don’t presume to know anything about me, big brother,” Azula said without any heat. It was hard to be angry when his eyelids were fluttering on the edge of sleep in the middle of a bite of food. Zuko probably had no clue what he was even saying, anymore.

“‘M sorry I left,” he mumbled, then succumbed. Azula looked at the food he’d barely made a dent in, and helped herself to it.

* * *

Azula sat as close to Zuko’s prison as possible without being suspicious, idly studying maps with no markers on them. They were expected to remember all the details, because maps could be compromised. So could people, but maps didn’t have families to threaten to keep them in line.

Father was in there with him, and Azula didn’t like how that made her skin prickle. He wouldn’t kill Zuko, not yet (she hoped). But he was hurting him. Azula felt like someone had come into her rooms and torn up her belongings. And burned them. And _touched_ them. The thick stone of the cave system muffled Zuko’s screaming, but they were still audible, like a spirit's wailing, and it was easy enough to imagine what he must be enduring.

 _I’m sorry I left._ Azula hated how stupid Zuzu could be. Like that was his biggest problem right now, that he apologize to her for something she didn’t care about.

She looked up from the map to glare at the others in the cave. The majority of their forces were squirreled away across the islands, waiting for orders, far enough apart and unaware of the others’ movements that if one was compromised the others wouldn’t be. Only the ones who Father thought were worthy of being in his inner circle were here. Worth, Azula imagined, meant something very different to her father than it did to her.

Cheng had the decency to glance guiltily at the Dai Li -- or rather, at the blank wall between them, where Father had disappeared again and again. The society, which Azula really wished they’d pick a better name because even Phoenix King was better and more appropriately dramatic for a coup than New Ozai Society, had agreed to capture and execute the usurper Fire Lord. They hadn’t agreed to torturing a boy not even twenty, but spineless, greedy cowards that they were, they said nothing. 

Azula had expected it. Father kept his temper well in the public eye, but he was not kind. He was not forgiving. Perhaps she hadn’t expected it quite this strong or violent, though she wasn’t surprised. Father had lost everything to his son, who had been branded and banished, who failed and betrayed, and who absolutely refused to lay down and just _die_ . He was understandably angry. She stroked her finger along the Caldera on the map. Father saw those as failings, but Azula knew better now, and _she_ knew how to use them.

So long as Zuko didn’t do something stupid and get himself killed before Father intended.

As her Dai Li moved to a sign that Azula couldn’t hear, she stood and gathered up a few odds and ends to tend to her idiot brother. Father stormed out of the dark hole, and Azula bowed her head when he approached. His black robes hid the blood, but they couldn’t hide the stink of iron and smoke and cooking meat.

“I trust my darling brother is still alive, Father?” she asked the ground.

“Enough.” He clenched his fists, and Azula grit her teeth against a flinch of her own. “Keep him alive until the festival.”

Azula asked no further questions, but was glad she was staring at the ground. It sounded as though Father was done entirely with Zuko until then. It was like a vice had been loosened from around her throat. Zuko would be entirely in her care, as things should be, and away from the possibility of death not at her hand. For now.

Father walked past Azula, dismissing her and letting her duck into the cave.

Zuko wasn’t bound at all. Nor was he moving, glassy eyes staring upwards, and Azula’s heart skipped. But then his gaze flickered to her, and she sighed. Of course he wasn’t dead. She shook away the lingering alarm (worry, _fear_ ) and knelt next to him.

“What did you say to upset Father so much?” Azula asked as she assessed the damage. Father had left his tools in here, repurposed from much more innocent things into instruments of torture.

Zuko’s night robe had holes in it and layers of grime, and barely hung on his thin frame, the defined muscles of a firebending master eaten up by his own body. His pants had been shredded or burned to the point of uselessness by now, leaving his pale thighs exposed to be covered in injuries like a morbid canvas. Those were mostly old, and shallow enough for Azula to ignore for now.

“Nothing,” he muttered, rolling his head away from Azula as she picked up his hand. His skin was cold even for a non-bender. It felt like holding a corpse's hand, except for the tips of his fingers, which throbbed tender and hot. The beds of his nails were mottled a disgusting purple, black, and red mixture of dried blood and burnt skin. Some nails had fallen out from earlier trauma, while others still had sewing needles pushed underneath them.

Azula didn’t have to ask him if he meant nothing-nothing, or some comment that he thought was nothing worth mentioning. Zuko was absolutely (and surprisingly, given his love of theater and poetry) literal. If he said he said nothing, she knew it meant he’d said nothing at all.

She found the pliers Father had used to insert the needles and pinched the end of a needle. Zuko’s good eye widened at the sudden pressure against frazzled, hypersensitive nerves. Before he could protest, Azula yanked the needle out. Zuko shrieked and jerked against her iron grip around his fingers. Azula had never considered that healing could hurt before Zuko’s inurnment and her subsequent assignment as nurse. She liked to think that her active enjoyment of his pain made her the best possible nurse in this situation. No hesitation, no pity, no shame.

“Only you could annoy Father to the point of abandoning you mid-torture without saying a single word,” she tutted, ripping out another needle. Fresh blood welled in the slivered flesh underneath his nails and dripped down his fingertips to the floor.

As more came out, Zuko tired himself struggling, and lay limp but for instinctual twitches and gasps of pain. Soon, Azula had a neat little pile of bloody needles by her leg.

Azula checked up his arm for anything else that might have been shoved in, and only found cuts crusty with blood-soaked salt. She grabbed her water skin and poured it over them. Zuko barely moaned, low and defeated. Once they were cleared enough, she began stitching up the ones that were deep into the pulp of his arm, humming some nonsense childhood song that she pointedly didn’t think about the origin of. Twitching flesh and fresh blood made it difficult, but not impossible, to close him up before infection took hold.

Those seemed the only pressing injuries this time, so when Azula finished smearing on a pungent salve to stave off infection and wrapping his arms and fingers, she sat back on her heels to study Zuko’s face. His eyes were closed, but the clench of his jaw told her he wasn’t unconscious, yet.

“Do you want more painkiller?”

“No. I’m tired of--” He breathed slowly through his teeth. This was the boy who ended a hundred year war in the middle of a lightning-induced heart attack. Sometimes, Azula had to wonder if he had an undiagnosed condition that made it impossible to stop, no matter the pain or damage. Or more likely, Zuko was just insane. “I’m tired of being drugged. Why aren’t I dead yet?”

Azula rolled her eyes. Here she was, trying to do something nice for him, and not even a thank you for her efforts or her offer. Ever since becoming Fire Lord, Zuko’s been nothing but work, work, work.

“Father wants to burn you alive at the festival of Agni. It’s all very symbolic.”

Zuko coughed. Azula wasn’t sure if that was supposed to mean anything in response to her revelation. She poured the dregs of her water skin onto his mouth. He licked his lips, but still said nothing. At least she could take pleasure in the fact that it wasn't silence born of spite, just exhaustion. Unlike Father, Zuzu was still willing to talk to _her_.

Azula lay down on the ground next to Zuko, closed her eyes, and listened to his agonized breathing. Zuko suffered so nicely, and could endure so much. Father really was a monster, wanting to end that.


End file.
